Kind Words

“…An abundance of lush imagery that draws upon multiple themes, from Aristotelian philosophy to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The paintings are painstakingly produced and filled with a technical excellence that does not rely on creative cliches. The artist riffs on themes of occultism, eroticism and sacred geometry in a show that is exciting and countercultural. […] Wall’s artwork is carnal, lyrical, original and uplifting. His subject matter is in distinct contrast to that of some of the safer art venues around town… it’s well worth a visit if your aesthetic interests expand beyond the traditional.”

“The wild card of the bunch is Elliott Wall…. His standout piece in the Insolitus show is Lyre Plyre… [he] twists the woman’s locks into an up-do that is part Cleopatra and part 1920s flapper encased in a baroque glass frame – so ersatz rococo it would be at home in a Tijuana watering hole or at least a self-consciously hip dive bar.”

“Wall follows the nineteenth century convention for figure studies involving a nude female, in which the model is portrayed as the guise of some classical goddess or mythic maiden…. The challenge to realist painting from photography, dating from the late nineteenth century, fades today in comparison with the mimetic capacity of digital technology to create and manipulate high-definition, 3-D imagery. Perhaps the only effective response can be found in the work on view in Insolitus, one which is marked, in the approach of all three artists, by an overriding sense of creative control and an underlying concern for poetic import.”

“Skill comes into play in a fashion that reaches for the sublime… The ambiguous conjunction of elements here is unsettling in its marriage of allure, eroticism, religion and incantation, all the more so because Wall’s technical agility… is utterly frictionless, almost luxurious.”